BYOD.
Every human being must have a point at which he stands against the culture, where he says, this is me and the damned world can go to hell. — Rollo May
A great deal of ink has been spent on the theme of company culture, and everybody seems to be in agreement by now that CULTURE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING.
Consultants promise lasting cultural transformations. Celebrity CEOs claim to have single-handedly fixed a broken culture to improve performance. Employees blame culture for their own underperformance. Lecturers try to make sense of Drucker’s famous ‘breakfast quote’ about strategy consumed by culture. Not deterred by the fact that there is no evidence he ever said it.
What’s the use of all that extravaganza to us trying to do our daily jobs?
Not much, really.
Our natural habitat is our immediate surroundings — our team, boss, and a few peers. And if the boss happens to be a deeply wounded jerk, teammates blissfully incompetent, and peers actively uncooperative, what difference does it make if the company has a self-declared ‘great culture’?
Zero, zip, zilch, nada.
The truth is we bring our own culture to the workplace. Our own device.
We eagerly look for ways to express our personal values in whatever we do. Sometimes they jibe well with what the environment approves of. Sometimes we come to the point where we feel we must stand up for them. And, truth be told, this is when we discover what they really are. When they cost us something.
And in doing that, we are constantly asking ourselves, consciously or not, one fundamental question: is it safe to be different here?
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And more often than not, we learn that it is not.
The blessing in disguise is that we are now introduced to our own beliefs. Our own ethical norms for doing things. Our own ‘culture.’ It crystallizes in adversity. It takes shape, color, and texture.
Stop minding company culture. Start minding your own. Realize that, as Coudert reminds us, ‘of all the people you will know in a lifetime, you are the only one you will never leave or lose.’
One day you stand up for yourself. You come to the go-to-hell point that May talks about. You rise to defend your own ‘culture.’ Be then prepared for rejection, resistance, coercion. As Oliver says:
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
(…) though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
It is exactly when you step on a rake of indifference to your uniqueness and contribution, when you see lofty pronouncements fall flat on their faces, that you learn the most about company culture. You discover that results through prevention do not count. That action is valued above non-action, hustle above reflection, more above less. When things are better than that, you will learn to register that with respect for the place and appreciation for the people.
Bring your own culture and all will fall into place. And if it does not, you know what you need to do.
